Back to work on Tuesday, after my attempt of having a personal four-day weekend, and being unable (as usual) to relax. Who was I kidding?
Monday TV:
“How I Met Your Mother” – plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, particularly for lawyers:
Marshall realizes he hates Big Firm Law Practice, because it means drafting pointless legal research memoranda on how to deal with 23(b) class actions, because it means analyzing the factors of commonality, numerosity, etc. (clearly, there are one or more writers on the staff of HIMYM who’s the ex-lawyer!).
The gang didn’t want to hear about that and advised him to refer to the memo as “The Ninja Report” (awesome! I want to write a Ninja Report! I don’t know what a law firm would have to do with ninjas, but, say, the client’s suing a bunch of ninjas for ruining a contract or something).
Marshall has to deal with student loans and a horrific mortgage for an apartment that has an uneven floor and requires massive renovations to correct; his wife has a poor credit rating and a shopping addiction (plus as a kindergarten teacher and struggling artist, she’s not making all that much for their income); hence he can’t just quit the Big Law Firm, although his boss – the partner or senior associate – is a complete ass…
Barney’s company is “friends” with North Korea (thus explaining further why Barney is such a mentally-messed-up corporate cog – it doesn’t help that his idea of helping Marshall is to encourage poor Marshall to yell at lesser people to let go of the pent-up frustration).
Robin’s idea of helping Marshall is to suggest threatening his boss with a gun (thus returning NRA Member/Gun-Crazy Robin back to “HIMYM,” to which Ted replies: that may be how things are done in Robin’s Canada, but not, say, Corporate NYC).
And, last but not least, Ted’s trying to protect his shiny new car from his friends’ messiness (to no avail) – but, really, why does Ted have a car, when he’s a mid-level architect living in Manhattan? Is it for those trips home to Ohio (or where ever Ted came from prior to NYC) or to Staten Island (to visit the loathed cousins)?
Watched most of what might be the series finale of FOX’s “New Amsterdam.” I think it might get canceled – the writing’s not very good and some casting needs serious tweaking if this is going to work. That being said, I like the chemistry between the immortal John Amsterdam and his family – perhaps the character’s journey is about accepting the journey of life (no matter how much it sucks) and family and personal growth, rather than this hopeless search of finding his One Soulmate (the doctor as the love interest had no chemistry with John, plus she seems a little dim – poor writing indeed). Plus, the cop adventures in this series are ridiculously tedious. If you’re going to make this a little interesting in a fantasy tv way, place a Big Bad Villain, as shows as flawed as “Charmed” or as entertaining as “Buffy” and “Angel” figured out during their tenures.
Hugh Laurie in a big-screen American crime movie . When I saw the poster on a subway platform near work, I just thought – Hugh Laurie? Dr. House? The ex-Bertie Wooster, the British twit? Has Hugh Laurie come a long way or what? (oh, and Yahoo has the clips of Hugh Laurie’s moments from the movie; he has his House accent, of course, to play an American Internal Affairs detective. Hmm).
Sarah Weinman on “Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind” posted on what I thought was a little disturbing – that there are those in the publishing industry that don’t like libraries, sharing of books, or used books sales because they don’t really make money for the industry (which gets their share from first sales). Yeah, I know that this is a capitalist world, but life is more than money; shouldn’t we all want people to be literate? And, if books are accessible, then people will think about buying more books because they liked the writer they tried out from the library or even decide to buy a new copy of a book. Win-win, right? Anyway, Weinman links to an article on Library Journal, where librarian Barbara Fister proposes some ideas on how the publishing industry, libraries, and booksellers can cooperate to make a better world for readers.
Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman with a video on Hangtown fry, whereby you eat oysters with scrambled eggs and bacon; he adds mushrooms and parsley to the recipe and goes into a nice explanation. I’m a bit leery of raw seafood (yeah, oysters too), but I’m of the view that scrambled eggs make anything tasty.
Lastly: in one year after the killings at Virginia Tech: how a family honored the memory of their daughter by helping others.